Bay County woman testifies ex-boyfriend raped her, then chased her outdoors while nude

BAY CITY, MI — A visibly agitated woman testified in a Bay County courtroom that her ex-boyfriend held her down and raped her, then nakedly chased her when she fled.

A preliminary examination in the case of Delane D. Bell, 26, was held Tuesday, March 5, before Bay County District Judge Mark E. Janer. A 25-year-oldn woman identifying herself as Bell’s ex-girlfriend testified that she and a female friend encountered Bell and a second male while out drinking the night of Dec. 1. The foursome went to Bell’s mother’s Bangor Township house and all four entered Bell’s bedroom, the woman testified.

At some point, the woman’s friend, Brandy Sutter, and Bell’s friend, Corey J. Hardy, left the bedroom, the woman said. She said Bell was intoxicated and had been coming onto her, and that when the other two left her alone with Bell in the bedroom, she grew uncomfortable.

“I wasn’t worried about it,” she said. “I wasn’t scared.”

“Did you have the impression something was going to happen?” defense attorney J. Martin Foldie asked the woman.

“Not like that,” she replied.

She said at some point, Bell jumped onto her and raped her.

“I don’t even know how he got his clothes off,” she said. “I do know he didn’t have pants on when he got on top of me.”

The woman said that although her pants were pulled down, she was able to kick Bell off of her and that she fled outside, with a naked Bell pursuing her. Eventually, the woman, Sutter and Hardy drove away.

Sutter later told police that after exiting the house but before driving away, she went back inside to retrieve her purse. When she reentered the building, Bell threw her against a wall and tried blocking her way out, Sutter told police.

As the woman testified, Foldie presented her with a statement she had written for police in which she said she saw Bell already had a condom on when his pants came off. On the witness stand, the woman said she did not see the condom, but felt it.

She said she didn’t know how Bell managed to get all of his clothes off.

“I didn’t even see him completely naked until I was already outside,” she said.

During the hearing, the woman regularly looked toward Janer, averting
her eyes from a jumpsuit-clad, shackled Bell, who looked in the general
direction of the witness stand. She frequently used tissues to wipe
tears from her eyes.

Bell told police on Dec. 4 that he made advances toward his ex, but denied raping her.